Give it to me hard-a noob ventures into blogging

  • Black Soldier Fly Blog

    I would appreciate any level of criticism you care to give. I’m extremely new to blogging, so I assume that I can improve several aspects of my site. In the past I’ve used some very basic code for posting images/links on forums, but my mind turns to pudding when I look at a wall of code used to create a website.

    The purpose of the site is 90% hobby blog and 10% commerce. I’m not trying to earn a living selling the product, it’s just that I’m already promoting it so why not offer it? The manufacturer noticed that a forum thread of mine was sending them a lot of traffic so they contacted me and suggested I become a dealer.

    I’m waiting for instructions from the manufacturer about how to set up the transfer of money and shipping info. I assume I’ll just set up a simple PayPal check out and then transfer the funds and info on to them. It’s only 2 or 3 products so it shouldn’t be too complex.

    Thanks in advance for your comments.

Viewing 15 replies - 31 through 45 (of 59 total)
  • Thread Starter bsflarva

    (@bsflarva)

    longwing1, I like your site. It’s official, the minimalist phase of the internet is begun! ??

    bsf, Thanks. I like your site too. Except that I had larva dreams last night.

    IN MY HUMBLE OPINION: The only way to do a truly minimalist theme is to either write your own or gut an existing one. There are themes that are minimalist on the outside, but they aren’t minimalist on the inside. My blog.txt has been disgorged of its options setting, layout selections, widget support and semantic classes. If I don’t use it, I get rid of it.

    Have a nice day.

    Thread Starter bsflarva

    (@bsflarva)

    I wonder if anyone would give me a little more advice. It’s been a month since I launched this wp blog and I still haven’t seen it show up on a google search. I’ve installed and used an SEO plugin, kept my blog validating and I’ve posted a fair amount of content in the first month. My previous Blogger site (similar content) showed up in just a few weeks, and that blog has numerous xhtml errors. Furthermore I’ve added a link to my current wp blog on the old Blogger blog. Google analytics for the Blogger blog indicates that 73% of the traffic is from google, but the new site shows no visits via google at all. In fact this thread is the largest source of traffic on my wp site!

    The subject matter of my current blog is almost identical to that of the old Blogger site, only there’s more of it on the wp site.

    I installed the KB Robots plugin and I’m wondering if I may have used it incorrectly causing a problem for search engines.

    Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

    Ooh one thing I did forget to mention: have you installed Google XML Sitemaps?

    Unfortunately I’ve never used KD Robots nor the SEO plugin.

    clean and simple. I like that part of it. But, man, overall it is too boring to look at, let alone read.

    Thread Starter bsflarva

    (@bsflarva)

    Thanks for the suggestion mosey, I need to learn more about this SEO stuff.

    mrkingid, I had to laugh when I checked out your website. Mr. Pot, please meet Mr. Kettle. ??

    By the way I think your artwork is great. It’s very real without being overly “realistic” if that makes any sense. I mean, it’s realistic but playfully so. Yeah, that’s it, playfully realistic, like life seen through a babies eyes.

    Perhaps you would like to paint one of my fly larvae photos…

    Thread Starter bsflarva

    (@bsflarva)

    I’m really confused about my blog not showing up on google. I haven’t found a set of search terms that will make it come up at all. My subject matter is very narrow and I would think that after a month my new blog should be at least on the 30th page of results! My YouTube videos and my old Blogger blog on the same subject show up fairly high in the results and most aren’t much older than my wp blog…

    Any luck with Google XML Sitemaps? I think it helps a lot since it actually ‘pings’ the major search engines to let them know of updates.

    bsflarva,

    Have to disagree a little. ??

    I think what gets me is that everything is black, except pictures. Everything just falls right into the next. It’s as if someone keeps talking even though you try to get a work in kinda thing.

    cheers

    Thread Starter bsflarva

    (@bsflarva)

    mrkingid, thanks for trying to explain your critique to me, but I don’t think I get it. What exactly would you do to correct the problem that you see? My whole idea was to leave the site plain so that readers attention would be focused on the photos and the content. I don’t see how adding color randomly would make the site feel more conversational, if that’s what you mean.

    mosey, I’m having some trouble getting started with Google sitemaps. I think I understand about creating the two files (can I use notepad?), but I’m not sure where to drag them to on the server side of Filezilla. If I haven’t mentioned it before I’m very new to computers.

    Is it php_uploads? That folder is empty now.

    @bsflarva:

    I think the instructions in the readme.txt file are for the manual installation (in case the server/file permissions are a little strict) since theoretically (according to the online installation instructions) it should be just a matter of uploading the files, activating the plugin, and then sit back and watch Google visit your site (sorry, just had to throw that in :P)

    But to clarify: the two files have to be created to where your wp-config.php resides. aka. top-level. so your sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz file should be accessible from here: https://blacksoldierflyblog.com/
    (e.g. https://blacksoldierflyblog.com/sitemap.xml)

    Hope this helps ??

    Thread Starter bsflarva

    (@bsflarva)

    it should be just a matter of uploading the files, activating the plugin, and then sit back and watch Google visit your site

    Oh. Thank you. ??

    I appreciate your kindness mosey, if you ever need any fly larvae you just say the word!

    @bsflarva: Just glad to be of some help ??

    Thread Starter bsflarva

    (@bsflarva)

    It’s been 3 days since I added the Google XML sitemaps plugin and so far Google Webmaster tools says no pages from my site are indexed and no sitemap has been submitted. I did register my site with Google 2 days ago.

    Does this normally take days, weeks, or months?

    I’ve just logged into Google Webmaster Tools, since I can’t remember the interface, but I guess it might be worth going through it step-by-step, since it will make it easier for me as well ??

    1. Dashboard – after logging into the dashboard, I see the url of my website, which I had setup previously using ‘Add Site’.

    2. Site Overview – I clicked on the link to my site, which led me to the ‘Overview’ page, with tables for ‘Indexing’ and ‘Web crawl errors’.

    3. Sitemaps – after clicking on the link to Sitemaps, It tells me which file I’m currently using as a sitemap (sitemap.xml) – however, there is an option to ‘Add a Sitemap’.

    Not sure if this helps at all? ^^

Viewing 15 replies - 31 through 45 (of 59 total)
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